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25.01.2021 04:02

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These days it is harder to describe the British. The old differences are still there, but people are divided in many new ways as well. It’s all about diversity. Different classes, creeds, races, nationalities, languages, politics – perhaps we should marvel how it all works: how do so many varied lifestyles coexist and contribute to such a thoroughly modern nation?
Age groups and family structure.

One difference is the change in age groups. More people are living longer than seventy or eighty years, so the number of old people is growing. (Fifteen percent of the population is now over sixty-five). At the same time, fewer babies are being born (the average British family has two children). This means that the population in Britain is getting older all the time. Also, fewer people live with or near their families. This means that many old people live on their own, or in old people’s homes, the most telling statistic of all reveals a third of all people now live alone. One of the reasons for the consequences like these is the fact that the family structure has changed significantly since the Second World War. Find a mate, get married, have children; she gives up work, he earns the bread: so went the pre-war blueprint for family life. It seemed to work, and the familial hub was a cornerstone of British life. Divorce, birth control and abortion all became considerably easier in the 1960s (apart from in Northern Ireland, where abortion is still illegal) and, by the end of the century, co-habitation was viewed by most as a legitimate living arrangement. So, fewer people are getting married today than ever before, and of those that do, 45 per cent are likely to divorce. The number of lone parent families (and that’s overwhelmingly lone mothers) has risen steadily to comprise around a quarter of all families with children, 40 per cent of children are now born out of wedlock and the average couple now have 1.8 children, down from two in 1970. Yet polls consistently show the British place as much value on the family unit as they ever did.
Mergers and margins: multicultural Britain

Ethnic minorities make up more than seven per cent of the British population. Around half of them were born in Britain. Afro-Caribbean, South Asian, Chinese, Turkish, Eastern European and other migrant groups are integral to modern Britain; each contributes key elements to the national culture. London is among
the most multi-racial cities on Earth: around a third of inhabitants were born outside Britain, it resonates with the sound of 300 different languages and harbours 50 non-indigenous communities with populations of 10,000 or more. Traditionally, inner London has supported a large Afro-Caribbean population, while the suburbs are more likely to support Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani settlers. Towns and cities in the Midlands are home to a large British Indian population, and Pakistanis
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form the largest ethnic populations in the NorthWest of England, Yorkshire and Scotland. Only Chinese settlers, it seems, are spread relatively evenly throughout Britain. Northern Ireland is the least ethnically diverse part of the UK, with only 14,000 ‘non-white’ residents recorded in the last census (from a population of nearly 1.7 million). Perhaps correspondingly, the level of racially motivated attacks is far higher in Northern Ireland than elsewhere. But does all the talk of multiculturalism, of ethnic identity, cause more problems than it solves? Does it marginalise rather than integrate? It’s fair to say that most Britons’ knowledge of migrant culture extends little beyond their favourite choice of takeaway food. In the arts, especially, there’s still much to achieve; only music seems to have pushed ethnic minority culture into the mainstream. Some communities have become divided along lines of ethnicity. The spectre of Islamic extremism on British soil, rightly or wrongly, is regularly touted as a consequence of this segregation.